Part 32 (1/2)
”Ready, at eleven hundred yards. Now, men, be steady, and take your time.”
”Swabs” was in his element. He sprawled his legs wide apart, rooted his left elbow into the sand, and settled down as though he were firing for the battalion badge on the range at Melchester. Our hero was not quite so cool; his heart thumped and his fingers twitched as he adjusted the sliding bar of his back-sight.
”Aim low--present--fire!”
The rifles were discharged with a simultaneous crash.
”Good volley,” said Mr. Lawson, who was kneeling, peering through his field-gla.s.s; ”a bit short, I'm afraid; put your sights up to eleven-fifty.”
Jack opened the breach of his rifle with a sharp jerk, and drew a long breath. For the life of him he could not have told whether his aim had been good or bad, but this much he knew, that he had fired his first shot in actual conflict.
The skirmishers retired; but still the enemy hung back, too wary to attempt a charge. At length the order was given for an advance, and preparations were accordingly made for forming a moving square. The various detachments marched out of the zareba and lay down as they took up their positions. Camels for carrying the wounded, and conveying water and reserve ammunition, were drawn up in the centre; the two guns and the Gardiner with its crew of sailors taking positions respectively within the front and rear faces of the formation.
Jack raised himself and looked round, anxious, if possible, to make out the whereabouts of his cousin. He could distinguish ”Heavies,”
Blue-jackets, and the Guards, but Valentine and the ----s.e.x men were stationed somewhere out of sight on the other side of the central ma.s.s of baggagers and their drivers. A short wait, and then came the order,--
”Rise up! The square will advance!”
Two deep, as in the days of the ”thin red line,” the men marched forward, stumbling over rocky hillocks and deep water-ruts, vainly attempting to keep unbroken their solid formation, and delayed by the slow movement of the guns and camels. The Arabs, swarming on either flank, opened a heavy fire. The flight of the bullets filled the air with a continual buzz. Men dropped right and left, and a halt was made while the wounded were placed on the cacolets. The sides of the square turned outwards, the Mounted Infantry formed its left-front corner, and Jack and his comrades were in the left face.
”Why can't we give 'em a volley?” murmured ”Swabs,” gazing at the feathery puffs of smoke on the distant hillside, which looked so innocent, but each of which might mean death to the spectator. No order, however, was given to fire, and the command, ”Right turn--forward!” put the marksman and his comrades once more in motion.
To walk along and be shot at was not exactly the ideal warfare of his boyhood: but Jack had been ”blooded” by this time, and trudged along with a set face, paying little attention to the leaden hail which swept overhead, and only wis.h.i.+ng that something would happen to bring matters to a crisis.
A few minutes later his attention was turned to the line of skirmishers, who were moving, some little distance away, in a direction parallel to the march of the square. Suddenly, close to two of these, a couple of Arabs sprang up from behind some bushes. One rushed upon the nearest Englishman; but the latter parried the spear-thrust, and without a pause drove his bayonet through his adversary's chest. The other native turned and ran.
”Bang! bang!” went a couple of rifle shots; but the fugitive escaped untouched, and disappeared behind the brow of an adjacent knoll.
”See that, Lawson?” inquired a voice from the supernumerary rank.
”Yes,” answered the subaltern, ”like potting rabbits. I think I could have wiped that fellow's eye if I'd been there. The bayonet _versus_ lance was done better.”
Jack glanced round, and saw the speaker smoking a pipe, while Sergeant Sparks tramped along close behind with an approving smile upon his face, as though, if questioned, he would have made exactly the same observation himself. It was no time to be fastidious or sentimental; the callous indifference to life and death, whether real or a.s.sumed, was the thing wanted. Here, at least, were two superiors who did not seem to consider the situation very serious. The young soldier s.h.i.+fted his rifle to the other shoulder, and grasped the b.u.t.t with a firmer grip.
For an hour, which might have been a lifetime, the square toiled on, every now and again changing direction to gain more open ground; the stretchers and cacolets constantly receiving fresh burdens. A man, two files in front of our hero, went down with a bullet through the head, and those in rear stumbled over him.
”Close up! close up, and keep that corner blocked in!”
With mouth parched with the stifling heat and dust, Jack sucked at the lukewarm dregs of his water-bottle, and wondered if the river itself would ever quench his thirst. ”Swabs,” his rear-rank man, kept fingering the loose cartridges in his pouch. At length the marksman's patience and _sang froid_ seemed exhausted.
”Is this going on for ever?” he blurted out, ”Ain't we ever going to give it 'em back?”
Hardly had the question been asked, when the answer was made evident in a most unmistakable manner.
Away in the gra.s.s to the left front a number of white and green flags, mounted on long poles, had been for some time visible; and at this point, as though they sprang out of the ground, swarms of Arabs suddenly made their appearance, and with headlong speed and reckless devotion charged down upon the left-front corner of the square. The scattered line of skirmishers turned and fled for their lives; while behind them, like a devouring tidal wave, the vast black ma.s.s rushed forward, their fierce shouts filling the air with a hollow roar like that of a ground sea.
Like many another young soldier, with nothing but a few hundred yards of desert between himself and death, Jack's first impulse was to raise his rifle and blaze away at random as fast as he could load; but the clear, calm voices in the supernumerary rank, and the old habit of discipline, held him in check.